


a mistake is all (perdus les rêves de s'aimer)

by mushydesserts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Episode Ignis DLC, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Major Character Injury, Missing Scene, Pining, Post-Altissia, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-01 10:57:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13293360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushydesserts/pseuds/mushydesserts
Summary: The hell were you thinking,Gladio says, and Ignis stares straight ahead, defiant, into nothing, life bleeding from his eyes, and the thing is Gladio shouldn't have asked.(Episode Ignis spoilers. Kinkmeme fill, one-shot.)





	a mistake is all (perdus les rêves de s'aimer)

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/4398.html?thread=8354094#cmt8354094). Spoilers for Episode Ignis.

_The hell were you thinking_ , Gladio says, and Ignis stares straight ahead, defiant, into nothing, life bleeding from his eyes, and the thing is Gladio shouldn't have asked. He knows.

\--- 

The life doesn't bleed from Ignis. He trembles and keeps on breathing as they haul him back to the first enclosed room they can find in what is left of the city, following back the burn marks across the plazas and the emptied streets, hollow ghost district after district, crumbling walls and broken glass and dark shells of buildings left marked by Ignis's fury. The stray marks of bullets and the gouges of a greatsword are few and apart, too late, Gladio thinks, just like they were before, just like they were always.

Ignis isn't light or heavy in his arms, he just is, and the weight in Gladio's stomach is countered by the panic in his steps. Prompto's laboring with Noct draped over his shoulder some steps behind, and Gladio looks back every so often to wait for them to catch up, then looks forward again at the flickering light cutting through the gloom, help arriving at the checkpoint, too far away. Later on, Gladio will think about that breathless scramble in the dark and try not to count the tactical errors in his head: one for leaving Noct to Prompto. One for treason. Then counting backwards, to the route towards the water and the alleyways not taken, to the moment they split during the heat of battle. Then backwards from there, to the morning debrief, to the negotiations with Claustra, to the voyage and to the tempering grounds and to Duscae and to Insomnia.

Ignis isn't light or heavy in his arms. He just is. Gladio needs it to stay that way, and he doesn't think about what'll happen if he stops.

\---  

They keep Ignis and Noct in the same room. It's up in the air which one of them will wake up first, or at all, initially.

Noct sometimes moans in his sleep, but Ignis sleeps like the dead. Gladio checks both their pulses every hour. Gets fresh water for the bedside table. Turns the watch over to Prompto. Makes phone calls. Comes back.

"Hey. You should sleep," Prompto says once, tired enough himself that he can't voice it as anything other than a vague command, before he leaves to get some food for the two of them.

Gladio settles in a chair with a blanket to the side of the beds. He doesn't sleep. He keeps watch until Ignis wakes up, a slow fluid movement of limbs, the turn of his head, and the opening of his mouth to whisper a name before Gladio's already on his feet and calling for help.

\--- 

"We need you to tell us what happened," they say, so Ignis does, gauze over his eyes and over his chest, pale under the warm glow of the bedside lamp, his fingers curled on the white sheets next to him. Gladio wants to reach for his hand, offer something better than the air and the darkness, but then he considers that he'll have to pull away afterwards, and decides they'd both be better off if he didn't. 

Ignis finishes, pauses. "How's Noct?"

Gladio opens his mouth to say "the same," just as he had the three, four, five times before, but the words sour on his tongue and his throat constricts. Ignis just waits for him to answer, and Gladio needs to say something to wipe the anxiousness from his posture, but he can't.

When he gets up, Prompto moves to take over his spot. Prompto is better with words. Ignis nods at whatever he hears, sinks back a little, and Prompto does take Ignis's hand, nothing stopping him from doing so.

Noct is the same, when Gladio checks.

\---  

 _Luna_ , is the first thing Gladio hears when Noct begins to wake, a terrible plaintive cry, still gripped by nightmares and only half-aware. _Luna!_

Gladio goes to get Ignis. Ignis will want to know Noct is stirring.

\--- 

"Bring me," Ignis says, urgent and pale, when he hears the news. He sits up, reaches for the glasses on the bedside table, nearly knocks them off. "Bring me to where he is."

Gladio gently picks the glasses off the edge of the surface, slides them back within Ignis's reach. "Don't rush it," Gladio says gruffly, but Ignis swings his legs down to the carpet.

Gladio stands outside the door, and when Noct calls _Luna!_ again, Ignis says _Noct_ , sounding young and lost, and waits for a reply that he can't tell isn't coming. _Noct_ , he says again, like he says _I'm sorry_ , and then everything falls quiet and Gladio can't tell who makes the next noise between the three of them: Noct in the bed, Ignis beside it, or Gladio behind the door. It's a sharp exhale, half a gasp and half a sob.

There are matters of provision and transportation and strategy to see to, so Gladio goes and leaves them to their mourning.

\--- 

On the train, Ignis says, "You know I'd do it again."

"'Course you would," Gladio says.

The walls tremble with the rattle of the wheels against the rails, the rush of engines the only sound in the cabin. The silence from the other occupant is accusing.

Silence is the new way of things, looks like. Even Prompto's been more subdued than he's ever been in Gladio's memory, though he tries, Astrals know, to fill the yawning space between the all of them with fluffy talk when he can, just to take off the edge of it. Gladio rarely engages; it's for Ignis's benefit, he knows, since there's not much else for Ignis to occupy himself with at the moment. Not even the view.

Noct hasn't spoken in a week. Not since they left. He's sat by himself, throwing Ignis guilty and furtive and terrified glances every so often through the passing light and shadow coming in through the foggy windows, and then looking away again, looking down at the notebook between his hands, the cursed ring hidden away somewhere, as if it'll cease to exist if he can't see it. Ignis had asked, words tortured, two evenings ago, if there was anything wrong — had asked Gladio if there was anything wrong with Noct, and Gladio could tell he meant _is there anything wrong with what I have done_.

Noct hadn't yet thanked Ignis for what he'd done, nor censured him. Noct hadn't really had time to consider what he thought of it, Gladio figured. Not that Ignis would have done anything different if Noct had eviscerated him for it upon waking, had told him off with a shaking rage for being so stupid.

Gladio tries again. "You did what you had to. Noct's still here, ain't he?"

Gladio hates how bitter that sounds. He would've died for Noct once. He would still die for Noct.

"Indeed. That's what matters," Ignis says, lips barely moving, though the words are a reproof for him, for Gladio, because this is a truth they've both been raised to believe, and Gladio's never had reason to disbelieve it, not until the city was sinking around them and their king nearly lost, and Ignis, Ignis got there first.

He shouldn't have had to.

The setting sun is painting stripes of gold and fire across Ignis's face, warm on his neck and jaw, catching in his straw-pale hair, glimmering against the white scars already beginning to fade. He'd only asked once how the scars looked. Beautiful, Gladio hadn't said. The scars looked like writing on the skin to Gladio, like _I have always been yours_ , written for another's eyes.

"Gonna stretch my legs," Gladio says, stomach tight and skin hot and throat closing. He rises, and he glides his hand lightly across Ignis's shoulder as he goes, a touch just to say _I'll be back_. Ignis nods, folds his hands over his cane again.

At the compartment door, Gladio pauses. "Want me to send Noct in?" he says, quiet.

Ignis's inhale and exhale is nearly imperceptible. "If you could," he says.

As Gladio stands at the threshold he glances back once, committing to memory Ignis's profile against the wood and the light, his back straight against the seat, despite it all.

Ignis doesn't turn towards him.

Gladio slides the door shut on his way out. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> _wedding bells ain't gonna chime_   
>  _with both of us guilty of crime_   
>  _and both of us sentenced to time_   
>  _([et maintenant nous sommes tout seuls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78gnqecSEw8))_
> 
>  
> 
> find me at [mushydesserts.tumblr.com](https://mushydesserts.tumblr.com/)


End file.
